Fri, 31 Jan
|Sydney
2020 Australian National Catholic LGBTQIA+ Pastoral Care Symposium
“I am about to do a new thing” - Growing Catholic LGBTIQA+ Pastoral Care. This national symposium will consider the religious, spiritual, social and political context in which LGBTQIA+ Catholics, their families and friends live in 2020. It has been over 30 years since a conference of such was held.
Time & Location
31 Jan 2020, 7:00 pm AEDT – 01 Feb 2020, 5:00 pm AEDT
Sydney, Sydney NSW, Australia
About the event
The silencing of LGBTQIA+ people continues in the church and in politics as seen in the debate on ‘religious freedom’ and the proposed ‘Religious Discrimination Bill’. This Symposium willl consider how can we respond to this as well as other pressing issues such as the Plenary Council 2020 and the editing-out and erasure of diverse LGBTQIA+ Catholic stories, realities and experiences in our church.
The theme of the national symposium: “I am about to do a new thing” - draws from our renewed hope found in Scripture as well as that of Pope Francis’ reminder that “The goodness of God has no limits and discriminates against no one. Because of this, the banquet of the Lord's gifts is universal, for everyone” and that we as church must go out to the "existential peripheries" where pain, suffering, healing alongside great faith and new ways of flourishing is being found.